Saturday 1 October 2011 17.57 EDT
First published on Saturday 1 October 2011 17.57 EDT

Some of Chris Christie's political allies have a telling way of describing the man who has become the most talked-about candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, even though he's adamant he's not running.

They have in recent times called the New Jersey governor "a bully and a punk", "vindictive", "deranged" and "a rotten prick".

Then there are Christie's political enemies – and that's how many regard themselves, not merely as opponents. They describe the governor, who claims to be the leader who can reach across the ideological divide and break the partisan deadlock in Washington, as conducting a "rule of anger", of having "a remarkable inability to have a civil dialogue" and of using his powers as an "instrument of revenge and rebuke". He has also been derided as "the king of liars".

Christie burst into the race for the presidential nomination, even without declaring his intention to run, with a speech at the Reagan Library in California last week that electrified many conservatives who fear their party's existing crop of candidates – led by Rick Perry and Mitt Romney – are not cutting it.

For months Christie has said he has no intention of seeking the nomination to challenge Barack Obama and that is the stance he maintained last week, even after one woman pleaded with him to take the White House for the sake of her children.

But his performance prompted a flurry of speculation over his many strengths as a candidate and Christie dropped a few morsels to keep the prospect alive. One was to boast that what has been good for New Jersey over the past two years under his leadership would be good for America. "Our bipartisan accomplishments have helped to set a tone that has taken hold across many other states," he said. "This is the only effective way to lead in America during these times."

Christie points to his accomplishments in New Jersey as disposing of an $11bn budget deficit without raising taxes, tackling public sector employee pension and health benefits that were bankrupting the state, breaking the trade unions' grip on education policy, and reversing years of job losses through tax cuts and business-friendly policies. He capped property tax rises at 2% and claims to have created 50,000 new jobs after years of losses.

"These are reforms that had eluded previous Democratic administrations," said Christie's spokesman, Rick Gorka. "When you combine the reforms, the fiscal policy and the business policy, he's been able to get New Jersey on the right track. Voters here in New Jersey support him. Recent polling put that number around 54%. Those type of accomplishments translate beyond New Jersey."

Above all, the governor said he has forced through reform by winning over the other side. But the more the other side deals with Christie, the more it seems not to want to. Opponents say that, while he presents himself as reaching across the political divide, he is in practice pursuing a highly partisan strategy to build a following on the Republican right by emasculating government programmes for the less well off, bashing unions and looking after the rich. He has cut property tax rebates for those who most need it and hit schools with reductions in teachers and money for extracurricular activities. The cuts have included removing the entire budget for a centre for abused children and slashing aid to students from poor families to go to college.

He has also acted to reassure the right on several touchstone issues. He said he believes the science on global warming, a heresy to many conservatives, but then pulled New Jersey out of a regional initiative to cut greenhouse gases.

In contrast to his widely viewed appeal from California last week for everyone to just get along, in June he was the keynote speaker at a secretive rightwing fundraiser where confrontation, not compromise, was the order of the day. The billionaire host, Charles Koch, a funder of the Tea Party movement, lauded Christie as a potential presidential candidate as he described the 2012 election as the "mother of all wars". The audience was mostly conservative activists who see political consensus with Democrats as surrender. That, say the governor's critics, is the real Chris Christie.

"He's a very polarising governor," said Barbara Buono, Democratic party majority leader in the New Jersey senate. "The governor feeds in to people's deepest fears and darkest instincts. He ostracises and marginalises anyone who disagrees with him. He scapegoats and demonises opponents. He has this brashness that has a real nasty edge. It masquerades as honesty, but poisons the possibility of any truly frank discussion and debate of important issues."

Much Democrat anger centres on Christie's handling of the state's $30bn budget. They say his claims to have held down the deficit are a fiction and nothing more than a juggling of numbers to make the books look good while he uses the cover of the financial crisis to slash services and kill off social programmes.

But what really riles Buono is how it was done. She said the budget negotiation process consisted of Christie presenting his proposals and, when the Democrats responded by attempting to limit or reverse cuts as part of the usual back-and-forth of politics, Christie retaliated with even deeper cuts.

"He didn't like the fact that we made changes to the budget," she said. "Typically you have give and take between the branches. You find a way to come to a meeting of the minds. But he threw the political equivalent of a temper tantrum and used his power to cut beyond what he proposed in his original budget in some cases. He suddenly cut grants for low-income college students. Teachers and kids at dozens of suburban districts are financing the governor's tax cut for millionaires through reductions in their school aid. The budget is a tool of political revenge and the most vulnerable are paying the price."

The Office of Legislative Services provides independent financial assessments to the New Jersey legislature to help it draw up the budget. Buono said that, after the OLS came up with figures that challenged the revenue projections in Christie's proposed budget, he added a measure to slash funding for the office.

"These are people who are apolitical, government bureaucrats who do their job well. He's attempting to emasculate the independence of it," she said. "It smacks of the politics of retribution."

Among the most contentious cuts is the withdrawal of funding for women's health clinics that provide cancer screenings and prenatal advice but which also happen to do abortions – another touchstone issue for the Republican right.

Christie has called Buono a "jerk" and his aides dismiss her criticisms as partisan harping. "The failed policies of Barbara Buono and her allies have brought New Jersey to the brink of bankruptcy," said Gorka. "Governor Christie in the first part of his term has been able to address and solve the issues that eluded Buono and her allies when they were in charge. And he's done it through bipartisan co-operation."

Christie won over nearly a third of the Democrats in the New Jersey legislature to support his financial measures. Among those who backed him was the president of the state senate, Stephen Sweeney, whom Christie called a "friend" in last week's speech.

Sweeney recognised the need for targeted cuts and public sector pension reform, and helped to pass what he thought was a deal set in stone. Then Christie used his power as governor to selectively veto funding for services to the poor and programmes he didn't like. Sweeney was furious at the betrayal.

"This is all about him being a bully and a punk," he told the press. "I wanted to punch him in his head. You know who he reminds me of? Mr Potter from It's a Wonderful Life, the mean old bastard who screws everybody."

Sweeney said Christie was being vindictive because Democrats had opposed his original budget: "Don't be vindictive and punish innocent people. These people didn't do anything to him. I'm just so angry that he hurt people like this to prove a point. He is a cruel man."

Another Democrat who backed Christie on the budget, Sheila Oliver, the speaker of the state assembly, ended up calling him "deranged".

One of the biggest showdowns has been over education. Ostensibly the confrontation is about the quality of teachers and schools, but underpinning it is Christie's evident contempt for unions, something he was not shy about stating at the June fundraiser with Koch.

"The governor has consistently said that New Jersey has fantastic teachers and they deserve a union as good as they," said Gorka. "The union and the system right now are set up to protect teachers at failing schools. There are 100,000 students trapped in 200 chronically failing schools and that is unacceptable."

But the teachers' union, the New Jersey Educational Association (NJEA), said that while there are evidently problems with a small proportion of schools the state's education system overall gets some of the best results in the US. The union says Christie is creating a myth of a failing school system in order to blame the NJEA and break its opposition to deep cuts to the education budget.

"One of his first acts was to cut almost $500m out of the school budget," said the NJEA's Steve Baker. "He then cut another $800m out of public education. Thousands of teachers lost their jobs. There were cuts to academic programmes. It was very destructive."

Caught up in the battle was a federal grant programme, Race to the Top. The state's education commissioner and the NJEA collaborated on a comprehensive application that appeared certain to win the state more than $400m in funds. Christie killed the application, ordered a new one then missed the deadline.

"There was some talk radio hosts who started claiming Christie was giving in to the teachers union," said Baker. "What he objected to was the NJEA had participated in the process. Whatever lip service the governor pays to collaboration I really think he finds it anathema to consider the perspectives of the unions."

Christie is keeping New Jersey, and the rest of the US guessing about his next move. The Republican right looks on him increasingly favourably, but he has serious marks against him for many conservatives, including his support for gun control and lack of animus toward illegal immigrants.

John Wisniewski, chairman of the New Jersey State Democratic party, said he would be a very flawed candidate.

"He carries a particular liability," he said. "If you look at all of his town hall meetings, all of his public appearances, he has a remarkable inability to have a civil dialogue with anybody who disagrees with him. The jaw gets clenched. The fists get tight. He points at the person. He really can't stand to have somebody question his decisions or thought processes. That insecurity is not something that wears well on the campaign trail for president."